Kerfuffle

Today's installment of the curious nature of Republican values: "Rape's OK with Us" edition

Yeah, I know.  This has been around for more than a few days now.  But it still both amazes and annoys me.  Thirty Republicans in the US Senate voted against an amendment that would hold government contractors to the law.  In this case, the law has to do with rape.  And the contractor in the hot seat is perennial Republican darling KBR (you might know them as Halliburton).

John Stewart does what the mainstream (you might know them as "liberal") media doesn't bother to do:  call these assholes on their behavior...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rape-Nuts
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I especially love that Stewart points out that these same clowns were ever-so-quick to scream for ACORN's funding to be cut for crimes that could have been but weren't.  But they say that trying to get involved with who the government hires and what standards to hold them to isn't really in their purview.  Really?  What a bunch of hypocritical bullshit.  You guys can't call this KBR-Rape's OK issue "playing politics" while pouncing on ACORN before facts were even assembled.  And I'm not sticking up for ACORN; they created their own problems.  But how can you vote in favor of KBR over rape?  Just couldn't bring yourselves to vote for something that has Al Franken's name on it, huh?  Fucking petulant children.

(Like how Stewart uses the word "kerfuffle" in his report.  An underused but fun word, at least in my view.  As you'd likely expect from me.) 

In an odd way, this place-based ad for Silk Soft toilet tissue is both hilarious and disturbing.

Oh, those clever Danes.

I have to hand it to the agency.  The creative does have a way of driving home the fact that product is 100% recycled.  Of course, if you have a twisted mind like I do, it may leave you wondering if it's recycled as in "someone else used it once already."

Brief: Promote the fact that Silk soft is 100% recycled and generate awareness on a low budget.

Idea: To communicate that Silk soft is truly 100% recycled we put
stickers on standard toilet tissue dispensers on selected public
toilets around Copenhagen.

Advertising Agency: By Far, Denmark
Creative Director / Art Director: Benjamin Bidstrup
Copywriter: Michael Jacobsen
Photographer: Hans Nygaard
Released: January 2009

I absolutely love the fact that there is a credited photographer for this.  What a fun photo shoot this must have been.  "OK, can you give me more brown-eye?  Hike the pants up a bit.  I'm getting some glare; can one of you powder his left cheek?"  Kudos, Hans Nygaard, where ever you are.  I hope this is a crown jewel in your portfolio.

[h/t Scary Ideas]

AIG Chairman Edward M. Liddy pretty much says "f*** you" to the American taxpayers

Can these people be any more contemptuous?  I mean, honestly.  In nearly every other business environment, people who fail get fired.  But the very pompous Edward M. Liddy, CEO if AIG feels that failure is to be rewarded with $165 million in bonuses to keep the failed team in place.

From the New York Times...

The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the Obama administration that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated, a senior administration official said. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them.
:::
A.I.G., nearly 80 percent of which is now owned by the government, defended its bonuses, arguing that they were promised last year before the crisis and cannot be legally canceled. In a letter to Mr. Geithner, Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman of A.I.G., said at least some bonuses were needed to keep the most skilled executives.

“We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury,” he wrote Mr. Geithner on Saturday.

Are you kidding me?   What planet do these "executives" live on?  You guys ran AIG into the ground through your mismanagement and irresponsible stupidity.

If the United States treasury owns about 80% of AIG these days, does that mean we have 80% of the seats on the board of directors of the company?  If so, it seems to me that Treasury Secretary Geitner should be able to tell Liddy to shelve the bonuses... or fire his ass.

Of course, I only took Econ 73, the intro level course, and that was in 1978.  So I may have this wrong.

Yet another reason I loathe Goldman Sachs, the so-called bank holding company that blew $6.5 million in taxpayer money on bonuses for its financial staff... while continuing to royally f*** Burger King employees

My original reason for loathing Goldman Sachs has mostly to do with one of their money managers I know (well, knew) personally. Greedy, cold, calculating asshole. Now I have a much better reason to loathe them. 

Goldman Sachs is a major stakeholder in Burger King.  While they suppress the BK workers' wages, cheat them on overtime pay and rack up dozens and dozens of labor law violations, they are pretty comfy giving your money to their financial managers.  I gather these are the financial managers that managed them into needing that government bailout.

I'll let Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films explain...

Shameful.  Another example of how the super rich feel they are entitled to make themselves richer while screwing the working poor. 

Simply Shameful. 

Don't let the door hit you on your ass on the way out: A look back at the Worst Presidency Ever

Sure, Keith Olberman's a little biased against George W. Bush.  So are most all decent, thinking people.  I mean, c'mon.  Look what he and his comrades have done to the the United States of America.  Sad but true. 

From MSNBC via FDL...

Jeez, what a schmuck.  Tuesday can't come soon enough.

Mmmmm. Is that charred monkey I smell in your luggage?

Our family never really had any weird food traditions around the holidays.  I did date a guy for a while whose family always had spare ribs and sauer kraut on every holiday buffet.  We did a "soulful" Thanksgiving with a lot of Deep South dishes a few years back.  And Tom's mom used to make "ham balls" which she thought were very popular until I confessed I was feeding them by the handful to the dogs.

But we never went for monkey meat.

From WaPo...

Customs officials searching the bags of an African man who flew into Dulles International Airport on Friday discovered three charred monkeys in his luggage, as well as deer meat and dried beef, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said yesterday.

The man was traveling from Bangui in Central African Republic, a small country north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He admitted he was carrying the meat, a common food in parts of Africa, after a trained dog alerted authorities to the man's bag, customs spokesman Steve Sapp said.

The monkey carcasses, inadmissible under U.S. law, were confiscated and are being inspected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; monkeys can easily introduce infectious diseases to humans, Sapp said. The other meat was destroyed, and the man was allowed to enter the country without penalty, Sapp said.

Foreigners visiting the United States sometimes try to bring with them exotic foods that are part of their native cuisines, especially around the holidays. But this was "a first for many of us," Sapp said.

All together now:  "EEEE-yuck!"

There are some really sick McCain supporters out there

This is some sick shit.  I mention thinking voters a lot.  Here's an example of the thoughtless kind of people who go beyond the pale. 

From Dale Neal at the Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times...

Bear found dumped at WCU with Obama signs

A dead bear was found dumped this morning on the Western Carolina University campus, draped with a pair of Obama campaign signs, university police said.

Maintenance workers reported about 7:45 a.m. finding a 75-pound bear cub dumped at the roundabout near the Catamount statute at the entrance to campus, said Tom Johnson, chief of university police.
“It looked like it had been shot in the head as best we can tell. A couple of Obama campaign signs had been stapled together and stuck over its head,” Johnson said.
University police called in N.C. Wildlife Resources officials to remove the body and help in the investigation. Bear season is currently under way in Western North Carolina.
“This is certainly unacceptable,” Johnson said. “Someone was wanting to draw attention to the election. If we find out who they are, we’ll make sure they’ll get some attention themselves.”

Yeah, it takes a real man to shoot a baby black bear (racist perhaps?), attach Obama stickers on it and dump it at the local university. Probably some asshole who has already proclaimed he'll "vote for Sarah Palin 'cause she's hot!"

Sick shit.  That's what happens when you employ totally negative, fear and anger inducing rhetoric.  Sick shit indeed.

The politics of hate, McCain-Palin style

Honestly, I still find this disturbing.  The level of vitriol and ignorance -- plain and simple ignorance -- is breathtaking.  Granted, this kind of hate-mongering is not representative of all of McCain's supporters.  But it sure says a lot about the McCain-Palin campaign that they tacitly endorse this shit by not disavowing it.  No wonder their poll numbers keep dropping.  Lies and a disproportionate fixation on minority views of so-called morality coupled with incendiary language stokes the hard-right base.  But it is plainly evident that thinking Americans would rather focus on issues that really matter... like the economy and our fading leadership on the world stage.

Is it still "roadkill" when you find it in your living room?

Too many times in recent weeks, one of us has walked into an area of the house and uttered the words, "What's that smell?"  Reason for that query isn't the odor of a dog's messing on the rug or an over-ripe cat litter box.  But in every case, some dog or cat has played a role in the odor's origin.

We installed dog doors so that the dogs can go outside at will.  They have access to about an acre of fenced lawn and forest.  The cats quickly learned how the dogs doors work as well.  So far, so good.  But our cats, being cats, like to bring back various prizes.  Do they deposit their bounty on the back steps like most cats?  Hell no; they bring it inside.  Then they haul it around, snack a little, and leave the rest for a passerby, often in very conspicuous locations like the middle of the front hall.

Not to be left out, the dogs have gotten in on the action.  Recently, we returned home to find an unidentifiable pile of guts in the family room.  I'm not sure which was more revolting, the sight or the smell.  We weren't sure what it had been when living, but once we found the back end of it in the living room, we knew it had been a rabbit.  This was much more than something the cats could have done, but of course the two dogs acted as if they had been out at the movies all day and were utterly, cluelessly innocent.  Having watched the two of them shred  plush toys in games of tug-o-war many times, I can only imagine how the deed went down.  EEEEyuck.  Poor bunny rabbit.

Sometimes, whatever it is is still alive.  Very alive... so much so that it makes a break for it.  This explains how my mother-in-law came upon Bosco the dog and Lucy the cat chasing a terrified chipmunk through the house.  (Did you know that when frightened, chipmunks scream?  I didn't.)  I caught the chipmunk with a waste basket and a toilet plunger and released it, freaked out but otherwise unharmed, into the front lawn.  Unfortunately for the chipmunk, the usually sloth-like cat named Laverne emerged from the bushes, lumbered after the dazed chipmunk and, well, that was that.  At least she didn't bring that one back in the house. 

I am given cause to disgust you with all this because earlier this evening I settled in to watch a movie.  We have this cool home theater (yeah, this is actually ours), and being a big dark room, the cats spend a lot of time in there.  As the movie began, I become aware of "that smell."  I tried to ignore it, and every time the air conditioning kicked on it kind of went away.  But about 30 minutes into the film, I couldn''t stand it anymore.  I stopped the DVD, turned on all the lights, and went on safari.  After dissembling the seating unit, I located the source... or what was left of it.  You don't want to know.

Fair warning to Laverne, Shirley and Lucy:  the next thing to cause that smell may be what's left of you.  Kidding.  Not really.  Kind of.  Beware.